How it Happened 
U 
A. CONAN DOYLE 
//Tustrciied by. Cyrus Cuneo 
HE was a writing medium. 
This is what she wrote: — 
I can remember some things 
upon that evening most dis- 
tinctly, and others are like 
some vague, broken dreams. 
That is what makes it so difficult to tell a 
connected story. 1 have no idea now what 
it was that had taken me to London and 
brought me back so late. It just merges 
into all my other visits to London. But from 
the time that I got out at the little country 
station everything is extraordinarily clear. 
I can live it again — every instant of it. 
T remember so well walking down the plat- 
form and looking at the illuminated clock 
at the end which told me that it was half-past 
eleven. I remember also my wondering 
whether I could get home before midnight. 
Then I remember the big motor, with its 
glaring headlights and glitter of polished brass, 
waiting for me outside. It was my new 
thirty-horse-power Robur, which had only 
been delivered that day. I remember also 
asking Perkins, my chauffeur, how she had 
gone, and his saying that he thought she was 
excellent. 
“ I’ll try her myself/’ said I, and I climbed 
into the driver’s seat. 
“ The gears are not the same,” said he. 
u Perhaps, sir, I had better drive.” 
“ No ; I should like to try her,” said 1. 
And so we started on the five-mile drive 
for home. 
My old car had the gears as they used always 
to be in notches on a bar. In this car you 
passed the gear-lever through a gate to get 
on the higher ones. It was not difficult to 
master, and soon I thought that I under- 
stood it. It was foolish, no doubt, to begin 
to learn a new system in the dark, but one 
often does foolish things, and one has not 
always to pay the full price for them. I got 
along very well until I came to Claystall Hill. 
It is one of the worst hills in England, a mile 
and a half long and one in six in places, with 
three fairly sharp curves. My park gates 
stand at the very foot of it upon the main 
London road. 
We were just over the brow of this hill, 
where the grade is steepest, when the trouble 
began. I had been on the top speed, and 
wanted to get her on the free ; but she 
stuck between gears, and I had to get her back 
on the top again. By this time she was going 
at a great rate, so I clapped on both brakes, 
and one after the other they gave way. 1 
didn’t mind so much when I felt my foot- 
brake snap, but when I put all my weight on 
my side-brake, and the lever clanged to its 
full limit without a catch, it brought a cold 
sweat out of me. By this time we were 
fairly tearing down the slope. The lights were 
brilliant, and I brought her round the first 
curve all right. Then we did the second one, 
Copyright, 1913, by A. Conan Doyle. 
